Small business & Google, Panda 4.0? Possible?

As a small company, we rely heavily on our website getting found online to generate leads for our business. We use a variety of tactics such as our blog posts, press releases and quality links to generate leads.

Most SEO companies will now tell you that the free ride on the Internet is over as Google pushes forward with its Panda 4.0 resulting in press release distribution sites losing their online strength. And, that’s because Google sees them as curators of intellectual property that belongs to others. That’s a blow to small business who relied on creating quality back links using these affordable services.

As you can see, Google wants us to spend money on PPC (Pay per click advertising) or heavily invest in giving away our intellectual property for free so that our businesses can be placed on page one or at least close to it.

Problems with both tactics, PPC and Content Development.

Pay per click: While this tactic works, in particular for anything technology, it is a very expensive program. And, your competitors will click on your advert just to spend your money.

Intellectual property: You’ve built it, you paid for it in many ways and now you’re expected to give it away for free on a blog post, just so you don’t get Panda slapped? That’s harsh!

Content Development: The more complex the product, the less likely you can farm out content development. While the more generic the product or service, like a yoga center or spa location, the more difficult it will be to develop original content.

What to do?

SEO Approach: Index only your highest-quality urls, not as many as you can.

More shares in social media : Do this only if you get quality leads via social media. Recent research shows that more social media platforms do not generate quality leads or as many leads when compared to other tactics. Do your homework before spending tons of time on social media.

Search for long tail keywords: Before embarking on content development, do an online search for keywords. Look for when your competitors come up and when you don’t come up. These are the keywords you want to build.

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I am a marketing communications specialist, strategist, problem solver and founder of The Marketing Boutique. Services also include competitive analysis, public relations, content marketing to help companies reach their business goals.